witchqueen
by bellmare
Summary: I am the princess of nowhere, the lady of nothing. I am the hollow empress, the faithful keeper of the long-gone. —Marluxia, Naminé.


Lined up before me like a row of marching toy soldiers, the tools of my trade silently await the touch of the witch's hand that will bring them to life.

In the hands of normal children, in the hands of impish boys and innocent girls, pencils and crayons are used to demarcate what is yours and what is mine, to fill in the details in a black-and-white life.

But when clutched in my fingers, they become more, so much more.

Each smudge of graphite can rewrite the entire story of your life. Each fat blotch of spreading ink can be a decade's worth of memories, blocked out by a single careless flick of my wrist. Each portrait hides a hundred, a thousand secrets, in the apple curve of a cheek, in the crosshatched circle of an iris. With each dance of my pencil as it skitters across the once-unmarked page which tells the tale of your existence, I can create, or I can destroy.

Nobody remembers me, the little slip of a girl who sits and forges chains, chains which bind together a person's mind, chains which define them and keep them within a set parameter. Nobody takes notice of me, and nobody realises what I can do if only I had the nerve to _try_.

They don't realise. _You_ don't realise. I've drawn countless pictures of everyone in my life; if I wanted to, I could sketch in an angry snarl of shackles and you would forget who you are, _what_ you are. Come too close to me, and I can paint in thick swatches of colour over your memories, making you think you're somebody who you _aren't_.

So why, why don't I do it?

Oh, everybody forgets me. I am the princess of nowhere, the lady of nothing. I am the hollow empress, the faithful keeper of the long-gone—or so Xigbar says. More likely than not, I could get away with it—nobody would notice their memories start going astray, nobody would realise there's an entire block of their history that has been erased.

You may think you have power over me—and you do. You, who can string me up in vines that bite at my skin, who can make me taste the acrid tang of fear at the back of my throat when you whisper honeyed maledictions into my ear. You, who once held that scythe to my throat and smilingly promised to tear it open if I so much as _thought_ of disobeying. You, who could break my neck with one hand tied behind your back if I ever revealed to all the true ugliness which beats in the empty cavern of your chest.

I could turn your own powers against you; I could make you forget how to command those snap-jawed monsters that bloom in garish vigour with each snap of your fingers. I could make you forget how to swing with a scythe, how to dodge the incoming blow of a sharpened stake of charcoal aimed at your eyes. I could override your instincts; suffocate you with the very air you breathe, as your brain forgets how to control your lungs. I could make your plants forget their master, and force them to devour you—just like how I've seen you do to those prisoners you return with.

I could do that.

But I don't. Instead, I sit and listen as your fingers paint ghostly trails down my back like silent black spiders, and like a well-trained pet, I obey your every order.

"Make him forget," you murmur into my ear; all around us, the fragrance of flowers lingers, the sweetness offset by something harsher, reminiscent of decay, despair—I should know that scent all-too-well by now, seeing as how its bitter perfume permeates every aspect of my life.

Lined up before me in a sickeningly cheery riot of colour, the instruments of a sorceress await, ready to be commandeered. The pencils clack sharply against one another like old bones as you roll them incuriously back and forth—no doubt you are revelling in that twisted humour of yours which made you set out this garish parade of rainbow hues against the white of our surroundings.

I nod. Under your watchful eye, the Keyblade bearer's features emerge from the creamy paper, a rough sketch ready to be commenced.

"Make him forget," you say with a smile, sharp as knives. You don't realise that I could just as easily do the same to you.

But I don't; why?

Because there is nothing for me in the outside world. I could almost forget the emptiness which gnaws away at my insides, but there will always be something that will remind me. However much I yearn to be free of that gilded birdcage which has become my home, I realise that I will never truly be free.

I could almost forget, but I never truly will.

Herein lies the price the witch pays for her power—she has no power over herself.

**- - x x x x x - -**

**epilogue. **_Usual disclaimers apply. Written for the marluxia_namine's 'thirteen floors' challenge on LiveJournal._


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